


Until We Move On

by TottWriter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Humor, Eventual Happy Ending, Ghost!Oikawa, Ghost!Suga, Ghosts, M/M, Stuck In The Afterlife With You, Why have soulmates OR a haunting fic when you can have BOTH?, and one percent making stupid decisions because Hey! we're already dead so what more could go wrong?, being a ghost is ninety-nine percent eavesdropping on the living, it's not quite a (nec)romantic comedy but it skirts the line in places, yup this is a haunting fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-19 23:05:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9464507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TottWriter/pseuds/TottWriter
Summary: People often claimed life wasn't fair, but turned out that in many respects, death was even worse. After all, what was the point in finding out you had a soulmate if you didn’t know who it was until you'd already died?It would have been bad enough having to wait a few years to be reunited, even after a long life together. But for Suga and Oikawa, both stuck in limbo until the loves of their afterlives pass on, they didn’t even getthat. So, seeing as Daichi and Iwaizumi showed no signs of passing on any time soon, how better to pass the time than together? A simple solution to a simple problem...right up until things got decidedlycomplicated.Alternate Title: Til Death Do Us Unite - A story about life, the afterlife, and post-mortem affairs.





	1. Enter The Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so a heads up: This is a ghost fic, which means there will be discussion of death throughout, and strong references to a car accident in the first chapter. It's not all angst, but the story definitely leads with the heavy stuff. I promise it'll get a lot lighter as it goes along!

Daichi rang the bell at the Sugawara residence the moment he reached the door; knowing that if he waited even a little, he’d lose what confidence he had. It wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be there.  
  
The anxiety knotted in his gut, mixing with the guilt and grief. It was too soon for this. Much too soon to show his face. After all, it wasn’t as though he was part of their family any more, right? The link between them was gone. He hadn’t even _called_ for three months, so what right did he have to show up at the door unannounced? He ought to leave before he made things worse. Before his presence only caused more pain. Coming was a stupid idea. Why had he even decided to, anyway? None of the arguments he’d had with himself at home made sense any more.  
  
The door swung open, and the lined face and piercing gaze of Koushi’s father caught him in the act of turning away.  
  
“Sawamura,” he said heavily. “You came after all, then.”  
  
Daichi turned back to face him, and hung his head. “Yes. I, uh…”  
  
A hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up to see the first tears begin to fall.  
  
“We’re just glad you could make it, son.”

* ***** *

It was all wrong. All _wrong_. He perched on the edge of the sofa in the living room, and marvelled at how well he knew the surroundings. Almost as well as their— _his_ own apartment. Well enough to mark the changes, even though they were subtle. The extra picture on the desk in the corner. The white lilies in a black vase. The cold, quiet absence on what should have been a day filled with celebration. He’d probably spent more time in this room than he had in his own home over the years, and never had it felt so _deeply_ wrong, even as the familiarity cradled his aching heart.  
  
Mrs Sugawara bustled into the room with exaggerated cheer, setting down a teapot and pouring drinks for the three of them. Daichi smiled weakly, trying not to look at the redness around her eyes.  
  
“The girls will be here soon,” she said brightly. “Umeko offered to collect Aoi from her campus, so as soon as the last lecture finishes they’ll head over and we can…we can all head out together.”  
  
“Kinu,” her husband said. “We don’t have to go. If you’re not—”  
  
“We’re going,” she said flatly, although her eyes filled with tears. “We’re going, and we’re going to celebrate, and…we’re not going to let the day pass without being _happy_. It’s his _birthday_. H-he wouldn’t want us to…”  
  
The cup in her hand shook, and she set it down hard enough that tea slopped over the edge as she turned away. Reaching into a pocket she pulled out a handkerchief.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I promised myself I wouldn’t _do_ this. Today of all days—”  
  
“He’d understand,” Daichi said, wishing his voice were less leaden. Wishing he felt less bitter about offering comforts which were more or less a lie. He was gone, after all. There wasn’t anything left of his husband _to_ understand what they were going through. But how could he ever admit that to the couple who had more or less adopted him? Even if the denial stung, it was what the Sugawaras needed to hear:  
  
“Koushi…always understood,” he said. “Wherever he is now, I don’t think he’d want you to blame yourself for how you feel.”  
  
And, unseen and unheard, the ghost of Sugawara Koushi stood in the corner and watched his sort-of-husband try to comfort his parents, powerless to tell them Daichi was right. Powerless even to make Daichi believe his own words.

 

* * *

 

Being dead sucked. Not only had there been the whole _dying_ thing—which was bad enough, really, even if it had all been over with relatively quickly in the grand scheme of things—but he’d managed to die in a car accident during a team reunion, which meant he had found himself in the afterlife faced with the prospect of his eternal companions being none other than Yahaba and Kyoutani, who had been in the same car as him. Yahaba wasn’t so bad, but… _Kyoutani?_ Iwaizumi, despite having been the final passenger in the car, was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he’d survived?  
  
There had followed a _long_ , long silence in which the three of them had just sort of stared at each other with a halfway companionable sort of expression. It had more or less managed to communicate their bewildered realisation that, okay. _That_ just happened.  
  
And the afterlife, it turned out, was a pretty empty place; consisting mostly of swirling, pale grey clouds which made up the ‘ground’, and even paler ones overhead which made the ‘sky’. They were stood in a rough imitation of the real-world location where they had died, half-formed from smoke and vapours. Insubstantial street lights lined the road, and the wreck of the car stood beside them, slowly melting into the ground. As they watched, it seemed to all be fading into the same empty nothingness.  
  
“So _now_ what?” Oikawa said, looking around.  
  
“Gotta be honest,” Kyoutani remarked, rubbing his head. “I didn’t think there _was_ anything after dying.” He stopped, and looked around. “I mean, we _are_ dead, right?”  
  
“Well if I were in a coma, I’m sure I could think of far better companions to imagine than you two,” Oikawa snapped. “So I’m going to have to assume we just died. I’m pretty sure no one could live through… _that_ , anyway.”  
  
Yahaba shuddered, but apparently neither of his companions were willing to bring up the events of the crash in any more detail.  
  
Oikawa was oddly grateful for that. It was one thing to realise that you had been killed, but reliving the events involved (and the word would have made him laugh bitterly had he been alone) was another matter entirely. It hadn’t been a good experience. In fact, he could state quite truthfully that it had been the worst five minutes of his _entire_ life. A life which was now over, apparently. What a disappointment.  
  
The scene of the accident had faded completely into pale grey clouds before any of them spoke again.  
  
“What’s that over there?” Yahaba said, pointing. In the distance through the swirling ground mist, there was a wall of white stone bricks which stretched up into the sky and out to either side until it faded into the distance.  
  
With nothing better to do, they wandered in the direction of the wall. It continued without end or turn, a straight line which—for all they could tell—extended into eternity. Looking at it, Oikawa idly wondered if this was somehow a reflection on his life. There had always been a wall in his way, in one form or another. Why had he expected death to change that?  
  
“A gate!” Yahaba cried, grabbing Kyoutani’s hand.  
  
Oikawa followed a little way behind as they walked over. The pair of them seemed pretty keen to check it out, although he couldn’t see what the fuss was about if he were honest. It was just a gate, and really, what was the point in any of this? Dying sucked, the afterlife sucked, and even the company sucked. It was rapidly turning into the worst day of his afterlife—if there even _were_ days in the afterlife.  
  
Still, the gate was impressive enough to look at. Probably something like four metres high, and roughly two thirds the width; made of silvery metal bars which looped and swirled in obscenely delicate and intricate patterns which changed continually. Oikawa thought he saw pictures now and then, but they were hard to make out in the overall sweeping design.  
  
“So…are we…meant to just go _through?_ ” Kyoutani said, looking up at it. “Jeez. You’d think someone would stick around here to explain things a bit better.”  
  
Yahaba smirked at him. “So one minute you’re an atheist, and the next you want…what, some sort of angel to explain the basics of being dead? Make up your mind already.”  
  
“Hey, I just always said I wasn’t convinced, seeing as there was no _proof!_ ” Kyoutani snapped, folding his arms and scowling. “I’m not gonna go denying it now we’re here. Congratulations. You were right, I was wrong, so you might as well go ahead and get all smug and pissy about it, just like you _always_ do when you win an argument.”  
  
“Are you _seriously_ trying to pick a fight with me right outside the gates of heaven?” Yahaba cried, throwing his hands up. “I can’t _believe_ you!”  
  
Amazing. They were dead, and yet somehow nothing had changed at all. Oikawa caught himself wondering at that. Shouldn’t they be more…surprised? Shocked? Worried? He hadn’t really felt anything other than a general sense of annoyance and a slight air of disorientation ever since he’d been killed. A subtle niggle that something wasn’t quite right.  
  
“Okay, okay you two,” he said lazily, trying to quash the rising sense that he was in the wrong place. “Break it up. I swear, you’re like an old married couple. Frankly you ought to have grown out of all this bickering by now.”  
  
Curiously, the two of them actually _did_ stop arguing, and exchanged a guilty look.  
  
“Oh. We never _did_ get to tell you, did we,” Yahaba said, hanging his head. He smiled sadly. “Or anyone else for that matter. I guess I got all worried for nothing.”  
  
To Oikawa’s astonishment, Kyoutani pulled the other man into a fierce hug. It took him a few seconds to catch on.  
  
“Wait…you two…you’re _together_ now?”  
  
Yahaba blushed fiercely and held out his hand to reveal a plain gold band on the appropriate finger. “We went abroad. It was never going to be recognised at home of course, but, well. We wanted it to be official _somewhere_.”  
  
“So let me get this straight—” Oikawa cleared his throat. “—Or _not_ straight, obviously. You’re telling me the pair of you not _only_ didn’t tell any of us you were together, but you went and got _married_ in secret as well? We didn’t even get to throw you a party! I would have organised the whole thing!”  
  
Kyoutani scowled at him. “ _Exactly_ ,” he said. “We…didn’t want a fuss.”  
  
Huffing at them both—they were _never_ going to get a party now, seeing as they were all _dead_ —he folded his arms and shook his head. “Honestly, I expected more from you, Yahaba.”  
  
“Well, it’s too late to worry now,” Yahaba said ruefully. “We can’t go back and change anything. I…I _am_ a little sorry we never got to tell anyone though. I’m not sure if they’ll ever find out. Our…families weren’t exactly supportive, so I don’t think they’re likely to pass on the news.”  
  
“Well they’ll find out when they die,” Kyoutani pointed out. “Really, I guess it’s all just a waiting game from now on. And it looks like we’ve got time.”  
  
Oikawa sighed. “I guess I can forgive you for being a little wary of talking about it in _that_ case. But I hope those gates open up soon, because if we _have_ got an eternity, I’d rather not spend it all stood here. And…I don’t know. Don’t you feel… _odd?_ ”  
  
“I don’t know about _odd_ ,” Yahaba said slowly. “But I definitely think we should be moving on.”  
  
“Yeah,” Kyoutani said. He looked back the way they had come, to the patch of clouds which now looked identical to everywhere else. “We’re done here. It’s time to go. Not how I figured it’d be, but I guess there’s no sense worrying about that now.”  
  
Oikawa stared at them. There was a brewing unease in his gut as he looked at the door. “What, just like that? You don’t…no regrets?”  
  
Yahaba shrugged. “What’s the point?” He turned to look at Kyoutani, and smiled. “We’re here now. And we’ll see everyone else who matters someday, I’m sure of it.”  
  
The pair clasped hands, and walked up to the gate. The metal drew back to allow their passage.  
  
Oikawa looked once more behind him, feeling oddly conflicted about the whole business. Why were the two of them so damn happy about it all? They’d just _died_ , hadn’t they? And okay, it turned out that dying wasn’t quite as big an issue as he had always halfway assumed, but even so…  
  
He walked into a wall, and cursed. Ahead of him, several steps along a pathway made of light, Yahaba and Kyoutani turned around to stare at him. He stared back. Where was the wall he’d walked into?  
  
Raising a hand, he pressed it forward, gaping as it met an invisible barrier.  
  
“What the—why can’t I get through?” he cried indignantly, thumping the barrier. “What’s so special about you two?”  
  
Kyoutani just shrugged, although Yahaba looked conflicted.  
  
“Is there…you didn’t seem all that keen to move on, you know. Perhaps something’s holding you back?”  
  
“Hmm, like an unfinished business kinda deal?” Kyoutani said. “Maybe that’s actually a thing.”  
  
“Did…did you want us to wait for you?” Yahaba said. “We…I think we could probably wait a little while.” He looked further along the path as he spoke, his expression wistful.  
  
Oikawa sighed, letting his hand drop. “No,” he said heavily. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. You two go…warm up the party for me or something. I’m sure I can take care of whatever the hold-up is soon enough.” He put on his brightest, falsest smile. “And be happy together, okay? Because you know we’ve got some celebrating to do when I catch up.”

 

* * *

 

Suga sat on his grave marker while Daichi paid his respects. It wasn’t especially dignified, but then what exactly _was_ dignified about watching someone mourn the fact you were gone, when you were sat right there listening? He’d tried to give the man he’d mostly married some space the first few times, filled with embarrassment at some of the confessions Daichi had made in the wake of his death. After all, Daichi didn’t _really_ think he was there. He was just venting. He _probably_ wouldn’t have admitted to having fallen in love with him in their first few weeks of High School if he had. He almost _definitely_ wouldn’t have admitted that during their third year, as Captain and Vice-Captain, he’d considered the rest of their team a dry run for starting a family of their own someday. He’d certainly never admitted how much of a sap he really was while Suga had been alive.  
  
Of course, Suga had more or less guessed as much anyway—they’d really had very few secrets between them, overall. But those were the sort of things they’d never said aloud. They’d never really felt the need to. They were words they didn’t _say_ , although they might have, one day. If they’d had longer together. Suga gently corrected himself again. If they’d had longer _alive_ together.  
  
Because that was the crux of it. They would always be together. They were, in fact, Soulmates; destined to be with each other through life and death. The rather bitter twist on it all was that he’d only found out about this after dying, and realising that he couldn’t pass on through the gates—into what he presumed was eternal paradise—because the bond he had with Daichi kept him firmly anchored on _this_ side of them. It was strong enough, now that he had shed his body, that he felt it as a solid pull every time he strayed too far. Each time he wandered the world he’d feel it tugging him back.  
  
And in truth, his presence _seemed_ to be a comfort, so far as he could tell. Certainly Daichi was…recovering. He was getting on with his life, and gradually Suga’s belongings had begun to find homes in boxes out of the way. The spare bedroom was home to most of them: knick-knacks and memorabilia, and those clothes of his which Daichi had proved unable to part with.  
  
When he’d first returned to the world Daichi had been a mess. He’d closed himself off from everyone, and spent his time staring at each and every picture and video that featured them together, railing against the injustice of a world which had torn them apart. Self-destructing with grief because he believed that Suga was gone forever, body and soul.  
  
There was nothing Suga could do about that. He’d tried talking to him without any success. Tried _shouting_ , or moving things, or dancing in front of him—he’d even spent a whole afternoon pulling stupid faces thinking _surely_ Daichi had to notice? But he hadn’t. The living and the dead seemed destined never to meet, and the prospect of waiting out the rest of Daichi’s life—even if he mourned himself into an early grave—had sent Suga into a downward spiral of his own for a while. He missed holding Daichi. Missed seeing him smile.  
  
In fact, there were a lot of things he missed about living. A lot of people, and experiences, and places. Still, that at least seemed to be the key to motivating Daichi out of his slump. And his birthday had turned out to be a painful but necessary step along the way.  
  
Gradually, he’d come to realise that although he was more or less entirely unable to manipulate the world around him (that was what came of being dead, he supposed), and the tug he felt to Daichi didn’t seem to work in reverse when it came to _physical_ distance, their emotions were at least partly linked. The more he thought about his family, the more Daichi seemed to recall them too. He switched from the albums of the two of them alone to the pictures from larger gatherings. Christmas. Their slightly-less-than-legally-recognised wedding. Birthday celebrations. When the message from his father had arrived, inviting Daichi to spend Suga’s first birthday after passing on with some actual company, he’d focused his whole mind on his family each and every day, watching his almost-husband war with himself until he _finally_ elected to go. And although everyone had spent a large portion of the day in tears, he could see that it was exactly what they’d all needed.  
  
From there, he’d learnt to hone the ability. First it had been so that Daichi actually looked after himself, and stopped ordering takeaway meals every night. Suga was sure his life insurance payout would keep Daichi afloat for some time yet (seeing as he appeared to have given up on working for the time being), but so far as he could tell, Daichi had a long life ahead of him, and there was no sense in both burning through that particular nest egg, _and_ ruining his health at the same time. If they had to be separated by mortal status, then at least _one_ of them ought to be fit and well.  
  
Daichi had joined a gym, and Suga spent three weeks telling him at every opportunity how proud he was for getting on with his life again. Okay, and _maybe_ checking him out as he regained some of that lost muscle. They were still more-or-less married. It was _allowed_. And it wasn’t as though he’d gotten any less gay just because he was dead, even if his libido appeared to have been left behind with his body. Thankfully, awkward boners were something which didn’t plague ghosts, a fact which let him focus on helping Daichi piece his life back together.  
  
Still, even though willing his soulmate to move on had turned out to be a full-time job—and a stressful one at that—he couldn’t help but be glad that Daichi _was_ still very much in the process of grieving. He’d run into plenty of other ghosts, after all. It was how he’d learnt about the whole Soulmates deal in the first place (the afterlife really did seem to be a spectacularly disorganised affair). And living just next door were an elderly couple who came as a package deal with the ghost of the woman’s first husband, Hiroto.  
  
He and Suga had struck up a loose friendship of sorts; born of their lack of any other company in the small hours of the mornings, when only the dead and insomniacs were awake. Hiroto, it turned out, had died in a workplace accident a couple of decades ago, and when his wife had eventually remarried, had been forced to come to terms with the fact he would have to spend the rest of her life as a somewhat unwilling spectator.  
  
“I don’t bear her any ill-will,” he’d said, as they sat out on the landing one night. Hiroto appeared to be a man in his early twenties, although Suga knew he’d been twice that when he died. Most ghosts apparently reverted to a preferred age over time. “My father was a lifelong widower, and we promised each other not to do the same. I couldn’t very well hold it against her that she kept our bargain, you know.”  
  
It was strange, Suga had thought, to watch such an apparently young man and know that he was the soulmate of an elderly woman who had lost most of her teeth and only slightly less of her hearing. It made it harder to connect Hiroto’s situation with his own probable future, even though he knew he couldn’t expect Daichi to live alone forever. They had been meant to grow old _together_ , and now that was something Suga would never have.  
  
So if he’d gotten a little clingy, could anyone especially blame him? He hadn’t even been dead a year yet, and Daichi was still young. There was nothing wrong with wanting to keep him to himself for a little while yet. He could worry about what he was going to do if Daichi met someone (and he very pointedly thought of it as an _if_ , even though he knew that was probably rather unfair of him), if the situation actually arose.  
  
For now though, Daichi didn’t show any signs of moving on in that regard. He still visited Suga’s grave every week, and every other week he brought flowers with him. Suga had developed a habit of trying to influence which flowers he bought, with mixed success. In the wake of his…well… _wake_ , he’d rather gone off lilies. Unfortunately they seemed to be a popular choice for graves, and florists tended to take one look at Daichi and trample all over his poor, hopelessly under-communicated good intentions.  
  
“I miss you,” Daichi said at last.  
  
“I know,” Suga replied softly. It didn’t matter that Daichi couldn’t hear him. “I miss you too, and I’m right here.”  
  
They’d been sat for a good thirty minutes or so, and the sun was sinking lower in the sky late February sky. This was the part of the visit where Daichi would work his way up to leaving. He’d had their one-sided conversation already, where Suga had sat and wished with all his might for Daichi to feel _something_ , the way he had asked to in those first few weeks; before his anger had set in and closed out the last shreds of his faith in anything.  
  
Daichi sighed, and reached forward to gather up the dead stems from the neat pile he had set them in on the floor beside him. He slipped them into a carrier bag and tweaked the latest offering—lilies again, sadly. Suga felt a pang of guilt at his relief that he didn’t have to haunt his own grave and sit there staring at them.  
  
“Please, Daichi. Just get me carnations or something next time. Or roses! I know it was kind of for Valentine’s day, but I really liked those, you know.” He got to his feet, and hopped lightly down from his grave. “Anything but more _lilies_.”  
  
“Can he hear you then?” said a light, oddly-familiar voice. “I haven’t managed to get anyone to hear _me_ yet.”  
  
Suga looked up, and almost fell over in surprise. Stood there before him, with arms folded and a rather irritated expression on his face, was the ghost of none other than Oikawa Tooru.  



	2. The Universe Sucks, And Everything Is Deeply Unfair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a heads up, this chapter contains an extended discussion about death/dying and the afterlife, and references to a car accident. 
> 
> And, if anyone is interested, in the course of writing this chapter, I _also_ wrote out the conversation between Daichi and Iwaizumi which is happening in the background of the first scene. I've left it out of the main narrative because there wasn't really a way to include it without screwing up the pacing something fierce, but it's [here on my tumblr](http://tottwritesfanfic.tumblr.com/post/156511130440/until-we-move-on-bonus-scene) if you want to read it!

Suga was startled enough that he didn’t notice Daichi start moving until he walked straight through him.

“Eurgh!” he cried. “Now look what you made him do! I _hate_ it when that happens.” He shuddered, trying to rid himself of the feeling of intangibility which always accompanied passing through things. People were even worse than inanimate objects, too. They left an odd tingling sensation which persisted for hours.

Oikawa winced. “Sorry,” he said, although his voice wasn’t especially sincere. “I take it that’s bad ghost etiquette or something then? I’m rather new at this.”

Suga sighed. “It’s fine. I just…didn’t expect to see _you_ here. Not dead, at any rate.” He felt the stretching pull of his bond to Daichi settle, and looked up to see what had happened to hold him up. Daichi appeared to have run into a man in a wheelchair who had spiky hair and a large scar wrinkling the side of his face. The leg just below his left knee was missing. “Is that…He was Seijoh’s number…four, right?”

Oikawa sighed, and nodded. “Oh, yes, Iwa-chan’s still alive and kicking…somehow. It took me a while to find my way back, so I’m still not entirely sure how he pulled through. He’d been discharged from hospital by the time I found him.” He folded his arms. “I figured I’d check in on everyone, seeing as I couldn’t seem to get through the gate.”

They wandered over, led by Suga. He didn’t need to announce that he wanted to eavesdrop on the conversation. If Oikawa hadn’t worked out that eavesdropping was 99% of what being a ghost was all about, then it was past time he had the lesson.

“…really sorry to hear that,” Daichi was saying as they approached.

Oikawa seemed to perk up. “Oh, Iwa-chan must be telling your captain friend all about me. And my dear kouhais, of course.”

“He’s my husband,” Suga said idly, taking in the differences in Iwaizumi’s appearance and adding them to Oikawa’s words. It was generally considered rude to speculate on how people had died, but then again, it wasn’t usually so _obvious_ , either.

“Did _everyone_ get married without me knowing?” Oikawa cried, as Iwaizumi swallowed heavily and said: “Oikawa too.”

He spoke in a clipped, cut-off tone of voice which made Suga wince. There were some conversations which were only ever awkward to listen in on. To judge from the shocked yet sympathetic expression on Daichi’s face, it wasn’t a conversation which was much fun to be _part_ of, either.

“Must be a setters’ curse,” Daichi said heavily. “I…I don’t know if you remember Suga…”

“Oh my, he _really_ loved you,” Oikawa remarked, looking between the two of them. “I saw the date on your marker. It’s been almost a year, and he _still_ can’t say it upfront?”

Suga frowned. “A word from one ghost to another. You don’t pry about that stuff. And, of _course_ he loves me. He’s my soulmate. Which, in case no one has explained it to you already, is the reason we’re both still here. You can’t move on until you and your soulmate can go together.”

“ _What?_ ” Oikawa screeched, drowning out the conversation between the two living men entirely. “You mean to tell me… _Mad Dog_ found his soulmate before I did? Where’s the justice in this world? I could have put up with Yahaba, but—those two… _soulmates?_ ”

“I’m assuming you mean your ‘dear kouhais’?” Suga remarked. “And, what do you mean? I thought you and Iwaizumi grew up together?”

Oikawa frowned suspiciously at Suga. “What makes you think _Iwa-chan_ ’s my soulmate? We’re just good friends, you know. There’s never been anything between us.” He spoke rapidly, the denial trotted out smoothly enough that Suga had to wonder how many times he’d said those exact words to other people.

“But you came here with him,” Suga pointed out, unsure if it was denial or embarrassment. “Unless there’s someone else…”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

Suga groaned. Oh no. He hadn’t been dead anywhere near long enough to feel comfortable dealing with this particular responsibility of being a ghost. Oikawa didn’t know? “You really haven’t run into anyone else that could have explained all this?”

Oikawa sighed. “I only died at New Year,” he said petulantly, folding his arms and taking a few steps away from the two living men. He paused, and frowned. “Actually, what day is it today? Iwa-chan doesn’t have a calendar in his apartment. He’s very badly organised at the moment you know. It’s not at all how he used to be. And everything’s all been a bit of a muddle since I got back.”

“Okay. _Okay_. Apparently this is my punishment for dying young,” Suga muttered, dropping his head into his hands and following Oikawa. A cemetery _really_ wasn’t the best place to conduct this conversation, but what alternative did they have? “Hiroto even went to the trouble of warning me about this. _Why_ didn’t I believe him?”

Behind them, Iwaizumi coughed. Suga turned around in time to see him blinking back tears.

“…I never told him how I felt,” he was saying. “I still can’t believe I never will, you know?”

As Daichi apologised again, Suga turned to look at Oikawa. For someone without any blood, he had managed to go remarkably pale.

Suga cleared his throat “Oikawa?”

“I’m fine,” Oikawa snapped, clenching his fists. “And obviously you’re wrong. Or lying—that’s _it!_ You’re making this whole soulmate nonsense up, aren’t you? I expect this is all some sort of joke you like to play on newer ghosts for fun. Well it’s not very funny!”

“Oikawa, listen,” Suga said, watching apprehensively as Iwaizumi turned to leave. “I know this isn’t an easy thing to hear, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. You feel a pull to Iwaizumi, don’t you? Something which draws you to him? Look, I was just as confused as you are at first—I mean, I love Daichi, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t understand why it was so hard to leave his side even though there were other people I wanted to check in on after I passed over.”

Oikawa flapped a hand, although he glanced back at Iwaizumi as he retreated down the path. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said uneasily. “There’s no ‘pull’. I expect you’re just trying to justify the fact that you’re stalking poor Daichi, that’s all.”

“I’m not _stalking_ him!” Suga cried. “I’m dead! I’m…I’m haunting him, if you really have to pick a word for it. And it’s because he’s my _soulmate!_ Look, I know you must feel the tug now that Iwaizumi’s walking away. I promise I’m not trying to make this harder for you. But it is something you need to know, and if there aren’t any regular ghosts where Iwaizumi lives who can tell you, then I guess it’s up to me.”

He looked around at Daichi, who had pulled out his phone. Calling Asahi, apparently. He sighed. That was both a good and a bad sign. Good, in that Daichi had reached the point where he was actually willing to call on their friends for emotional support. Bad in that he was having another day when he _needed_ it. He tried to switch focus—if he wasn’t careful, Daichi would pick up on the hints of his frustration at Oikawa and absorb them into his own woes.

Of course, Oikawa was rapidly becoming a thorn in that particular plan. Rather than follow the tug he must have been feeling towards Iwaizumi, he had elected to remain behind, trailing along beside them as they walked down a different path back towards Daichi’s car.

And in fairness to Oikawa, he was doing a pretty good impression of a ghost without a soulmate. If it weren’t for the occasional uncomfortable twitch in his face, or the odd backward glance over his shoulder, Suga might have believed he really _was_ one of the drifting souls Hiroto had mentioned. Those ghosts who had been born without a partner to anchor them in the living world, but who didn’t possess the desire to move on through the gates, either.

“Oikawa,” Suga said eventually, after the ghost in question had followed them all the way to Daichi’s car. “I can _almost_ understand your stubborn refusal to think of Iwaizumi as your soulmate, but…why exactly are you tagging along with _us?_ ”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Oikawa said, folding his arms and staring at him haughtily. “I’m proving once and for all that you’re just making up all this nonsense about soulmates. It’s not true.”

Daichi got into his car.

“Well, if you _insist_ , you’d better get in,” Suga replied, gesturing to the back seat. “I take it you’ve worked out how to hitch a lift?” He slipped through the passenger side’s front door and settled into the seat, watching as Oikawa grimaced and made his way onto the back seat, looking around with obvious discomfort.

“Isn’t there a better way of doing that?” he grumbled, rubbing at his arms. “And why do we have to follow your _husband_ around, anyway? Also, the back seat is a real mess. Doesn’t he ever clean this thing? I think it might be a better idea for us to get out and walk, and you can do your stalker—I mean _haunting_ thing later.”

Suga rested his head in his hands. “You _really_ don’t have to come with us, you know. Daichi’s just going to meet up with some friends. It’ll be more people you wouldn’t know even if you _could_ interact with them, and I’m probably going to be the only ghost there.”

“Well _that’s_ no fun!” Oikawa exclaimed, shifting so that he was sat on the middle seat. He clutched at the headrests as Daichi pulled away, grumbling as his fingers passed straight through them, and looked down at the seats uneasily.

“Welcome to the exciting life of a ghost,” Suga replied, rolling his eyes. “Look, even if you’re going to carry on pretending Iwaizumi isn’t your soulmate, at least you’d be around people you _know_ if you went back to haunting him. And it would feel a lot easier, believe me. I tried staying away as well. I’m pretty sure everyone does, in fact. It’ll get too hard to resist the pull eventually.”

“I don’t know what you’re ta- _aalk_ ing about,” Oikawa said, shuddering as Daichi turned onto a main street and picked up speed. He narrowed his eyes and glared at Suga. “There’s no pull,” he insisted, although the expression on his face was strained. “It’s…”

Suga turned around in the seat, so that he was facing Oikawa fully. “You don’t have to say it,” he said quietly. “I…think I can guess what happened. And I’m sorry.” He frowned, and looked across at Daichi, who was driving with red-rimmed eyes. “Hutch up a bit,” he said to Oikawa, pointing to the seat behind his soulmate.

Oikawa slid across, watching him warily. His eyes widened as Suga clambered straight through the backrest and sat down beside him, sitting cross-legged on the rear seat.

“There are some perks at least,” Suga remarked, shrugging. “Although it always stings a little when you go through things like that, no matter how many times you’ve done it before.” He shook his head. “Anyway. Daichi’s not going far, okay?”

“You’re very cheerful for a dead man,” Oikawa said. His voice held a trace of the petulant whine which had always carried so well across a volleyball court.

“Well, I figure I’ve probably got another…what, forty to fifty years of this? We’re not even thirty yet, and Daichi’s healthy enough. I may as well spend the time happy where I can.”

Oikawa stared at him. “You…you’re just going to spend all that time _watching?_ "

Suga looked over at Daichi, whose eyes were fixed on the road ahead. “As far as he knows, I don’t even exist any more,” he said softly. “It’s not easy—not at _all_ , some days—but I can’t really do anything to change that. And of the two of us, I probably have the better deal. At least I know that we’ll get to move on together in the end, right?”

He had to resist the urge to reach across the gap between them and rest his hand on Daichi’s shoulder. It wouldn’t do any good. Unlike inanimate objects, which could be solid enough unless he tried to move them, ghosts always passed straight through the living. And the only thing worse than not getting to touch Daichi any more was being forcibly _reminded_ that he couldn’t.

Oikawa stayed silent for the rest of the journey, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Suga couldn’t tell if it was from the pull he _had_ to be feeling—it would only be getting stronger the further he got from Iwaizumi—or from the fact he was in the back seat of a car. From the dates on Yahaba’s grave marker (and making an educated guess from Iwaizumi’s injuries), he’d died in a crash of some sort less than two months earlier. It was probably going to take him a while to adjust.

 

* * *

 

Sugawara was right. They weren’t in the car all that much longer before it pulled up to a halt. Oikawa sighed with relief as he stepped out through the rear door. It was an odd sensation to simultaneously _not_ be terrified of getting in car, while being aware that had he been alive, no one could have paid him to get back inside one that quickly. Being a ghost was like having all of his emotions at one remove: he was aware of them, without really _feeling_ them in quite the same way that he had while alive.

Mostly what he could feel was the sense that he was in the wrong place. The feeling had grown throughout their journey; a nagging worry which dominated his mind and made it hard to focus on anything which wasn’t directly in front of him.

They walked into a cafe he didn’t recognise, and Sugawara’s dearly undeparted husband had vanished off somewhere to talk to his still-living friends. Well, good riddance. If he were honest with himself, Oikawa was still feeling pretty bitter about being dead, especially as Sugawara was probably going to turn out to be _right_ , which meant…which meant…

He stopped walking abruptly. Oh. It turned out that not _all_ his emotions were safely boxed away. There was, in fact, plenty of room in his heart and his head and his chest and his stomach for an ache which made him gasp.

“Oh. _Ohh_ ,” Sugawara said. “Oikawa? Are you alright?”

Apparently ghosts could cry. Oikawa learnt this as his vision blurred and his nose stung, and the tears welled up to roll down his cheeks. The implications of what Sugawara had been telling him—the _reality_ of what Sugawara had been telling him—settled over him all at once. The sense of loss was crushing. He didn’t even need to breathe any more, but it felt as though he were suffocating.

“I…he…”

Sugawara pointed to an empty table in the corner. “Okay, the shock’s hit. Let’s go and sit down,” he said, entirely too calmly for Oikawa’s liking. “This way.”

Mechanically, Oikawa followed. The benches at the table didn’t tuck in, so they were able to sit normally without worrying about finding chairs that were pulled out far enough. Idly he wondered what they would have done if that hadn’t been the case.

“If it helps, just imagine we’ve placed an order for some food and it’s taking a really long time,” Sugawara said calmly. “It…can take a while to adjust, so feel free to hang on to habits from being alive. I still catch myself knocking on doors, or trying to press doorbells, sometimes. Oh, and a couple of months ago I was stood by the phone when it rang and I just reached out without thinking to try and pick it up.” He smiled, and shrugged. “It is what it is. But…that’s not what’s worrying you, is it.”

Oikawa shook his head, trying not to cry. He was _dead_ ; shouldn’t crying be a thing of the past? “You really meant it, didn’t you,” he said in a small voice. “About…about Iwa-chan. _My_ Iwa-chan.”

The smile on the other man’s face faded. “I did. I’m really sorry you had to find out that way. Still, I know it’s not easy, but—”

“No! No buts!” he found himself shouting, resting both hands on the table and leaning forward to hammer the point home. “You don’t under _stand!_ I mean—you said we’re soulmates? That…Iwa-chan and I, we were really meant to be _together?_ We should have had what _you_ had, and we didn’t!”

It was probably just as well they were ghosts, because if they’d been alive the entire cafe would have turned to stare at them. Part of him wondered if he’d even have cared about the fuss. It hurt. It hurt so badly.

“How could they _do_ this to me!” he cried, ignoring Sugawara’s wide-eyed shock. “We never got to be anything other than _friends_ , and now you’re telling me I have to spend the rest of his life watching him and never getting to be with him? It’s not fair. It’s not _fair!_ ” He let his head fall onto the table with a thump, sobbing gently. “I really loved him,” he mumbled. It was the first time he’d admitted it out loud, and he was saying it to someone who was essentially a near-stranger, but who even cared any more?

“I loved— _love_ him and I never got to say, and now it’s too late. Why didn’t I _tell_ him? I could have told him years ago, and I don’t even know why I _didn’t_ , and now I’ll never get to…to get _married_ , or have a house together, or do _anything_. I never even _kissed_ him.”

“It won’t be the same as if you were alive, I know,” Sugawara said. Oikawa could just about make out his hands clasping on the table. “And yes, it hurts, because in a fair world it wouldn’t have worked out this way. But you _will_ be with him in the end. Whatever’s on the other side of those gates—you’ll get there together, and there won’t be any time limits after that. You’ll pretty much have eternity, you know. We all will.”

“I don’t _care_ about eternity! I care about spending the next…way too many years stuck like _this!_ And all the while, you’re telling me Iwa-chan’s going to be missing me just as much as I miss him? _Why?_ ”

Sugawara’s voice was soft and gentle as he spoke: “I don’t know. And, you’re right that it’s not fair. But we can’t change that now. Listen, I know it’s hard, but I promise, it gets easier to deal with. I’ve been where you are now, and—”

“No you weren’t!” Oikawa snapped, lifting his head to glare at the other man. “You weren’t and you aren’t, and you know _why?_ You got to be happy with your… _husband!_ ” He spat the word out venomously, sitting upright in his chair again. “You got to love him and know he loved you back. I never had anything with Iwa-chan, and…and, well, I’m sorry it all ended early for you, but at least you had everything you wanted before that!”

Sugawara’s eyes widened again, and he leant back in the chair slightly, apparently taken aback by Oikawa’s outburst. Well, let him. It served him right for sitting there with his pretty little face, having had that happy, wonderful life: just rubbing it in that it had all been perfect for him, while he, Oikawa, hadn’t even managed to confess before he died. They were _nothing_ alike.

The silence stretched out and Oikawa was about to get to his feet and leave, thoroughly fed up with the universe as a whole. A sad, quiet sigh brought him to a halt.

“Daichi and I wanted to start a family,” Sugawara said. He stared off across the cafe towards where Daichi sat with another man Oikawa didn’t especially recognise. “I don’t really know if we ever would have managed it—we’d have had to look for some _really_ interesting loopholes in the law. We never even got as far as actually talking about the idea. But we wanted that. Both of us. I wanted _children_. I still do, even though I’m dead. And I only found out how _badly_ Daichi wanted a family when he told my grave. Maybe it would have come to nothing, in the end. I didn’t exactly have a lot of time. But we could have _tried_. And now, however long I wait for Daichi, however long we have together after all… _this_ , we’ll never get what we wanted most.”

Oikawa stared at him, wishing the first thought in his head had been something a little more appropriate than: _‘But children are terrible, why would you want that? And I know, because my nephew is always so mean to me’_. Especially seeing as the thought which followed it was that, oh. Takeru. Takeru was going to finish growing up without his uncle.

He’d barely managed to work his way up to accepting the implications of his death as far as _Iwaizumi_ were concerned, let alone everyone else in his life. How had he managed to forget them until now? Guilt and concern washed over him in gentle, abstract waves, made all the worse because even as he knew what a terrible person it made him, he couldn’t really say he was worried. What guilt he felt stemmed more from its absence than anything else. Shouldn’t he be sad about how his death was affecting everyone else?

“…Oikawa?” Sugawara asked.

He blinked, realising he’d been staring off into the distance. “…I don’t think I like being dead,” he found himself saying. “It’s all completely horrible.”

“A lot of this _is_ generally rather fucked up, I won’t lie,” Sugawara remarked calmly. Something about the expression on his face made the statement a lot funnier than it really should have been. Or perhaps it was just the slight shock of such a wholesome, charmingly attractive man talking so bluntly.

Oikawa snorted. He wanted to laugh, really, but the passing amusement only lasted so long before the ache in his gut caught up and his face fell.

Sugawara nodded. “The pull? I think you should go and see him,” he said. “It…it’s hard at first, I won’t lie. But once you get past that it eases out. There’s a peace to it all, in a way. And…” he frowned, turning from sympathetic to serious. “You can help him. He won’t know it—he _doesn’t_ know it—but he needs you. Those feelings which kept you together when you were both alive didn’t go anywhere. It sounds a little weird, maybe, but the soulmate thing isn’t just one way. Even if we’re dead, we still have a presence here. Living people just don’t know about it, that’s all. You being nearby will comfort him. And the better he feels, the better you’ll feel in turn. The way Hiroto explained it was…”

Oikawa shook his head. "Look, I really think I should just go," he said. "I don't...I can't... I just can't."

He got to his feet, hardly noticing the sting and numbness as he walked through the corner of the table, and stalked out of the cafe. It wasn't a part of town he was at all familiar with, but apparently that didn't matter, because somehow he _knew_ which way to go. It was the direction Iwaizumi was in. Walking was like finding out he had turned into a compass - every time he strayed off course the pull got stronger in another direction until he was back on track.

Being a ghost came with certain perks, apparently. Well, Oikawa wasn't exactly in the mood to call anything a 'perk', but it _was_ probably a good thing that he didn't appear to tire at all, no matter how far he walked. The streets were alien and dark - night had well and truly fallen while they were sat in the cafe talking - but the dark wasn't especially bothersome either. It wasn't so much that he could see better, but there was a quiet confidence in the knowledge that it held no terrors. He was dead already, after all, and apparently ghosts didn't feel the cold either.

The mysterious 'pull' Sugawara had harped on about so much pointed him across town to a slightly less familiar neighbourhood than the one where Iwaizumi lived, but that was okay. As he drew closer, Oikawa started to recognise the streets a little better. Apparently they had gone back to Mattsun's apartment instead.

Walking might not have been tiring, but it _was_ lonely, and with no other company (and no ghosts anywhere that he could see), there wasn't anything to distract him from thinking about everything Sugawara had said. Which, okay. It was a shitty way to pass the time, but whatever.

The fact of the matter was, the more he thought about it, the more he realised just how obvious it was that he ought to have said something to Iwaizumi before he'd died. All those little things he'd passed off as habits from having known each other since forever looked different with the information he now possessed. Hell, if even Yahaba and Kyoutani had somehow managed to get past their weird, weird...whateverness to admit they liked each other (and frankly, morbidly curious as he was, Oikawa was pretty sure he did _not_ need to know any of the details about how that had happened), then really, he and Iwaizumi had no excuse.

Yes, that was a point. if Iwaizumi was apparently so in love with him this whole time, why hadn't he said anything? It wasn't as though these things were a one-sided deal. Maybe if he'd been less...less... well, maybe if he'd taken the initiative and just admitted how wonderful he thought he was, then none of this would have happened. Maybe they wouldn't even have been in that stupid car of Yahaba's at New Year. Maybe he'd still be _alive_ , with an actual body he could hold his Iwa-chan with, and not stuck being a stupid ghost. Because, really, being a ghost _sucked_. It was awful, and whoever had come up with the idea needed a serious talking to. As soon as he ever managed to find someone who wasn't just another ghost, that was.

In the end, Iwaizumi started moving again before he reached Mattsun's apartment. The pull strengthened as they apparently moved away, presumably heading back to Iwaizumi's apartment. Oikawa stopped walking and threw his head back, groaning with frustration. Because, really. Wasn't it enough that he'd had the sort of terrible luck to have known his soulmate almost his whole life and not have worked it out, without adding this sort of nonsense to being a ghost too?

"When Iwa-chan dies, we are going to have a serious talk about all this," he muttered, stalking across a road with his head down. A car drove straight through him, setting imitation nerves on edge, and he screeched obscenities at it until it drove out of sight.

"I _hate_ this!" he cried. "I hate being dead, I hate being a ghost, I hate stupid Iwa-chan for not telling me anything when he obviously should have; I hate _EVERYTHING!_ "

The road lit up with the headlights of another oncoming vehicle, and he ran gracelessly out of the street rather than get technically run over again. The day had been bad enough already. The rest of his _afterlife_ was going to be bad enough already. The last thing he really needed was to make it worse.

_At least being invisible to almost literally everyone means no one saw that happen just now,_ he thought morosely. _Makki and Mattsun would never have let me live that one down._

He caught himself smiling as he realised the irony of the thought, only to feel a tightness in his gut as he realised he couldn’t even share the joke with anyone. Who was he going to tell it to, exactly? The only other person he knew who could see him was that Sugawara, who was more or less glued to the side of his husband. And if he were right about the ‘pull’, then they probably weren’t going to have a lot of opportunities to talk.

Waiting out the rest of Iwaizumi’s life on his own was going to be a real drag.

 

 


	3. Hey, It Beats Wanting To Kill Him, Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! As with the previous chapter, there is a super-angsty Daichi PoV section for this chapter. The scene in question doesn't start until about halfway through, but there's a link to it [here](http://tottwritesfanfic.tumblr.com/post/157041567120/uwmo-chapter-3-bonus-scene), anyway. Due to the nature of it, there aren't _really_ any spoilers in it. Poor Daichi doesn't get a window into the ghost shenanigans.

Iwaizumi’s apartment had definitely seen better days. There were piles of dishes by the sink, and laundry in varying states of cleanliness here and there. A stack of letters sat on the table, only half of them opened, and dust had already started to gather on the picture frames and in the corners.   
  
By the time Oikawa reached it again after his long and lonely trek across town, it was somewhere in the small hours of the night, and the lights were all off. There was no sign of Matsukawa anywhere. Well, that was fine. If he were honest with himself, he was intensely jealous of the fact Iwaizumi still got to spend time with everyone else while he didn’t. Yahaba and Kyoutani certainly hadn’t wanted to hang around, and a small, ugly part of himself wanted his friend—his _soulmate_ , urgh—to be just as lonely as he was. Because it really wasn’t fair that he had to be the one stuck out in the metaphorical cold for who knew how many years, while Iwaizumi had a support network which—based on the few days he’d been there—seemed pretty damn extensive. He hardly seemed to spend any time alone.  
  
Oikawa did feel a little guilty, thinking that. From what he’d seen, Hanamaki and Matsukawa missed him (and, he grudgingly acknowledged, his lovebird kouhais), almost as much as Iwaizumi did. And, as Sugawara had said, out of the two of them, _he_ was the one who knew that they’d be reunited in the end. But then again, Iwaizumi had always said he had a terrible personality and apparently he’d loved him back even despite that, so where was the sense in changing who he was now? Besides, dying ought to grant him an automatic pass for bitter, petty behaviour. At least for a while, anyway.  
  
He loitered in the empty living room for a while before curiosity got the better of him. There wasn’t actually any proof that Iwaizumi was home, after all. Perhaps Sugawara had been wrong, and he’d just wandered back on a hunch. He might peek through the door and find out that actually, Iwaizumi had stayed at Matsukawa’s again, and the whole night’s fretting and worrying had been based on a mistake. Which…actually, he wasn’t sure that it would be an improvement, if he were honest. So far, being dead had turned out to consist of one bad experience after another. Finding out that Iwaizumi probably didn’t love him after all would be the icing on the cake. He rested his hands on his hips, staring at the door as he mulled on his options. Better to find out sooner than later then, and get it all over with.   
  
It felt weird to walk into the bedroom uninvited, not least of all because he’d only actually visited this particular apartment a few times while he’d been alive. It hadn’t really been all that long since he’d helped Iwaizumi move in. There was still an unopened box in the corner marked ‘Volleyball Memorabilia’, sat underneath an open one with ‘Iwa-chan’s Junk’ scrawled on the side in his own handwriting. Good grief. Didn’t Iwaizumi care about what sort of impression that gave to visitors? Although, on second thoughts, maybe that was a good thing. He was absolutely feeling petty enough that he didn’t want anyone else making the sort of move which involved access to Iwaizumi’s bedroom while he was out of the picture.  
  
Iwaizumi was fast asleep, lying on his right-hand side with his arm resting above the covers. His face was drawn and weary even in slumber, an impression not helped by the fact that it was the scarred side which was most visible. The crutches he used to get around while inside were propped up against his bedside cabinet, upon which sat a half-filled glass of water and the various medications he would need to take in the morning. His clothes were scattered haphazardly across the floor. It was the exact opposite of a charming picture, but Oikawa found himself smitten all the same. Well, that was that then. Apparently Sugawara _had_ been right. Dammit.  
  
Oikawa sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. He’d spent quite some time during his life imagining what he would do if it turned out that Iwaizumi loved him back. Sitting and watching him while he slept wasn’t really how he’d expected things to go. Well, it _had_ featured in some of his idle fantasies over the years, but it had always been more of an ‘after the main event’ thing as opposed to being the main event itself. The _only_ event, in fact.   
  
If he were honest, he’d always rather assumed he’d be _alive_ when the scene played out, too. There were a heck of a lot more options for the living in this sort of situation, that was for sure. Once again, being dead sucked. Or rather, there was _no_ sucking, and that was definitely a major part of the problem.   
  
His cheeks flared with heat at that thought, and it was just as well there were no mirrors in the room because Oikawa was sure that ghosts shouldn’t be able to blush, and he really didn’t want to be proven wrong on something else that day. At least he wasn’t getting an awkward boner. Because really, what he was doing already felt weird enough without _that_.   
  
Some of the frown lines on Iwaizumi’s face had eased a little. He shifted in his sleep, and Oikawa leant forward to brush some stray hairs out of the way, sighing as his hand passed straight through them. Hesitantly, he tried to rest his fingertips against the other man’s cheek. There was nothing more than an uncomfortable sensation like pins and needles as they sank into Iwaizumi’s face. His soulmate seemed to have even less substance to him than the doors he had walked through to enter the room.  
  
It wasn’t exactly a surprise—he’d wound up in this very apartment after escaping the endless swirling clouds by the wall and gate, and naturally one of the first things he had done was try to get Iwaizumi to notice him. When screaming and shouting had failed, it was an obvious next step to try thumping both him _and_ everyone else who showed up at the apartment.   
  
Still, that had been before he had found out that his best friend had presumably been in love with him for years. Wasn’t that sort of revelation normally the point where a miracle occurred and they got to break the rules?   
  
“Iwa-chan, you’re supposed to wake up and see me now,” he murmured. “Because the thing is, I always loved you too, and…and you were meant to find out. I don’t want to wait until you die of old age you know. That’s much too long. And you’ve always been ugly enough even as a _young_ man, let alone when you get old and wrinkly, so—”  
  
He gritted his teeth. Why keep up the old pretence? There was no one around to hear it any more. This was exactly the sort of thing which had led to their never getting together in the first place. He hung his head, rubbing his temples.  
  
“You…you’re not ugly, Iwa-chan,” he said, moving closer and lying down beside the slumbering man. “I never really thought that, you know. You’ve always been so handsome, and strong, and even when you’re frowning you’re the sweetest person in the world to me. You’re perfect.”   
  
He paused. “I really wish I’d told you that while you could hear me, but I’m saying it now and that has to count for something, right? Because…because maybe you can only hear me when you’re asleep. Is that how it works? There has to be _something_ , Iwa-chan. We can’t…we can’t be _completely_ cut off, right? What’s the point in that! There isn’t any point in being soulmates if we can’t be special and get around this somehow.”  
  
Iwaizumi didn’t respond. Oikawa lay facing him, resting his head on his left arm, and letting his right hand sit on the bed next to Iwaizumi’s, close enough that they were _almost_ touching. He didn’t feel tired—could ghosts even sleep?—but for the next few hours at least, Iwaizumi wasn’t going to move, and that meant he could pretend it was…he’d stopped over, that was it. He’d stopped over, and they’d gotten everything out in the open and it had all been great, and now he was staying up late watching the love of his life, because why _wouldn’t_ he? Studying the changes in his face. Learning his features all over again, and making a mental list of all the places he wanted to kiss.  
  
Pretending really wasn’t enough, though.

 

* * *

 

It was flower day again, and Daichi had definitely been too tired and browbeaten to challenge the well-meaning florist when she’d picked out _another_ bunch of lilies. Suga had a feeling that she’d marked the damn things down as a regular order by this point. At least the growing heat of spring meant they would wilt faster.   
  
“I still can’t believe how many of those wretched things you bought for the anniversary of my death,” he grumbled, kicking his foot through litter as they walked up the hill to his grave. “You need to open your mind up a little more, and let me pass on the message that I _hate them!_ ”  
  
He sighed, then skipped ahead of Daichi so that he could walk backwards and watch him. At least he didn’t have to worry about bumping into something when he did that anymore.   
  
Daichi’s face was set into a frown again, but it was definitely a lot softer than the frowns he had worn even a few months ago. He smiled sometimes, too, although it was still only when he spent time with Asahi, or if he sat and watched a comedy programme on the TV—and they weren’t _his_ smiles. They weren’t the peaceful, quietly marvelling gazes he’d had when they were together. There were no more unconscious smiles, just the ones he wore for other people.  
  
“It’s a start, at least,” Suga said, wincing as his leg clipped through a grave marker. He glanced down and corrected himself so he was walking on the path again. “But you need to get out more, Daichi. And you don’t _really_ need to keep coming here every week, especially when you don’t even believe I’m there. Although…” He pressed his fingertips to his temples. “Daaaiiichiii,” he said, crinkling his face with mock concentration, and letting his voice waver into his favourite spooky voice. “Suga’s getting booored of flowers. Bring a book and read to him insteaaad, if you _really_ have to keep dragging your sorry arse all this way!”  
  
Daichi’s brows raised with recognition, and for a brief, heart-stopping moment (or it would have been if he’d actually _had_ a heart any more), Suga thought he’d actually made a breakthrough. Then—  
  
“And to think, all this time I thought you were so _sensible_ ,” Oikawa said from behind him. “But here you are. Just think how disillusioned I am right now.”  
  
Suga span on his heel so quickly that he almost lost his balance. He staggered, putting out a hand to brace himself on a nearby grave, and looked behind Oikawa rather than meet his eyes. Iwaizumi stood nearby, leaning on a pair of crutches. Oikawa followed his gaze and frowned.   
  
“He’s not meant to come up here of course,” he said. “If he falls over he could set back his recovery, and he’s only _just_ started seeing the prosthetics people. But Mattsun couldn’t make it today, so of course he’s doing too much again. Honestly, he’s even more stubborn than when we were children.”  
  
Suga smiled warily. “Daichi gets like that sometimes,” he said, watching his husband purse his lips and walk over. “He—oh dear. I think your Iwaizumi’s in trouble.”  
  
As they watched, Daichi stood with the bunch of flowers in one hand, pointing sternly at the crutches. Suga spotted the abandoned wheelchair at the far end of the path a moment before he did. A short flight of steps which separated them gave a probable reason for that.  
  
“Look, are you really meant to be doing this?” Daichi asked, staring along the path at the chair.  
  
“Hello to you too, Sawamura,” Iwaizumi growled, not looking up. “I’m fine, so please feel free to leave.”  
  
“He’s in a bad mood today because they told him he’ll need lots of physiotherapy to get used to the prosthetic he’s going to have,” Oikawa said, shrugging. “I don’t think he’s in the mood for company to be honest.”  
  
Suga nodded. But of course, Daichi remained oblivious of their conversation and had ploughed ahead regardless:  
  
“Look, I’m not here to intrude on your privacy,” he said, in what Suga recognised as his ‘I’m being reasonable’ tone of voice. “But it still hasn’t been _that_ long. And you look pretty tired. You normally come with a friend, right?”  
  
“He’s got a death wish,” Oikawa said, as Iwaizumi turned around to glare at Daichi, wobbling as he rebalanced himself.  
  
“I said _leave_ ,” Iwaizumi snapped.  
  
Suga groaned. “Ever since I died he’s got this protective streak, like he has to take care of the world,” he said, sighing as Daichi muttered a decidedly unconvincing apology and moved on to the area where his grave was. He ignored the pull and stayed behind, turning his attention to Oikawa instead.  
  
“You’re struggling,” he said flatly, noting the way Oikawa bristled at the comment.  
  
“Oh, and _now_ who’s the protective one?”  
  
Suga grinned. “I never said otherwise,” he said, shrugging. “Besides. I haven’t seen a lot of you since our…conversation. It’s been a while.”  
  
Oikawa sighed. “Oh, well. I’m still dead and Iwa-chan’s still alive and grumpy, so really nothing’s changed at all since then.”  
  
He spoke in a would-be cheerful voice, but it didn’t match the tired resignation in his eyes. Suga frowned.  
  
“Did you want to talk about it?” he said. “I mean, I don’t know how long we’ve got, but…if there’s anything I can do—”  
  
“What can _you_ do?” Oikawa said, folding his arms. “You can’t make me any less dead, you know. You’ve been a ghost a whole year now. That makes you twice as dead as I am, which really isn’t any help at all.”  
  
“Thanks,” Suga remarked dryly. “I’m flattered you think so highly of me. Although if I’m twice as dead as you are, that would make me twice as good at it don’t you think? Maybe you should listen to the wisdom of your senior ghost, in that case.” He grinned.  
  
“I knew I didn’t like you,” Oikawa muttered. “You think you’re so—”  
  
They were interrupted by Iwaizumi cursing loudly as one of his crutches wedged in a gap between paving stones and he almost fell. Oikawa instinctively raced to grab him, only for the man to pass straight through his hands, twisting awkwardly as he staggered and attempted to remain upright. He dropped one of the crutches and put out an arm, bracing himself on an adjacent grave.   
  
“God _damnit!_ ” Iwaizumi snapped, shaking his head sharply. His voice was tight with pain.   
  
“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa cried, running around him so that he was stood in front of him. He looked up at Suga, eyes wide. “What can we _do?_ ” he said. “He’s going to hurt himself, and he’s still recovering from the crash. He’s _damaging_ himself and I can’t help him!”  
  
“Okay, okay, _calm down_ ,” Suga said, holding his palms out in front of him.   
  
He glanced at Iwaizumi, who gripped the grave marker and tried to tug himself upright, wincing. He didn’t seem able to get into a standing position.   
  
“Look, I’m not entirely sure this will work, but…I’m going to try and get Daichi.”  
  
“Oh and how do you plan on doing that when he thinks you’re—”  
  
“Just shut up, would you!” Suga snapped, clenching his hands into fists. “And focus on Daichi, and how he’s really reliable. If you think that hard enough, hopefully Iwaizumi won’t snap at him if this works.”  
  
It was rude, certainly, but Oikawa had asked for it by bringing up the sorest subject possible. Still. He could explain the social niceties of ghosthood later. Time to focus. Suga closed his eyes and cleared his mind, trying to think the same 5 words over and over to the exclusion of all else: ‘I should check on Iwaizumi’. Thought of Iwaizumi on crutches, sat in a wheelchair. Ill and recovering and in need of assistance. It was a technique which only ever worked intermittently, but with any luck Daichi had kept the other man in at least partly on his mind _anyway_ , given the nature of Iwaizumi’s rebuff. Maybe he’d even heard the commotion.  
  
Thankfully, Oikawa had at least fallen silent. There was no guarantee he was actually _helping_ , of course, but it meant that Suga was able to concentrate until he felt a blessed lessening in the pull which had nagged at him for the last few minutes. He opened his eyes and clambered up onto the grave to get a better look.  
  
“Oh good, he’s headed this way,” he said, and got back down to find Oikawa staring at him, caught between panic and astonishment.   
  
“What did you _do?_ ” Oikawa said.  
  
Suga grinned. “You ready to listen to your ghost-senpai now?” He folded his arms, unable to resist feeling a little smug.  
  
Oikawa’s expression settled into a scowl. “Fine. You win this round, Sugawara,” he said, grouchily. “But only because Iwa-chan needs help. Tell me how this works.”  
  
“For now, just focus on thinking about…um…how Daichi is an ex-athlete, so he’s physically pretty strong and will know what he’s doing. Be relieved that someone came to help. But really _concentrate_ on those thoughts.”  
  
As he spoke, Daichi got close enough to spot what had happened. He dropped the bag he was carrying and ran over, reaching out his hand for Iwaizumi to take.  
  
“Here, are you okay?”  
  
“I’m _fine_ ,” Iwaizumi grumbled, although he accepted the help, and didn’t even complain when Daichi knelt down and picked up the fallen crutch, offering it back with an unreadable expression on his face.   
  
Oikawa visibly relaxed as Iwaizumi made it to his feet, and Suga cleared his throat.   
  
“I think it’s probably a good idea if someone accompanies him out of here,” he said. “Knowing Daichi he’ll offer in a minute.”  
  
“Well good luck,” Oikawa said, rolling his eyes. “Iwa-chan was always so busy telling me to look after myself, but it turns out he’s a real hypocrite you know.”  
  
Daichi had taken a couple of steps back, giving Iwaizumi space to get his balance back, but keeping a careful eye on him all the same. Even as they watched, he managed to muster himself up to speaking:  
  
“Look…I, er…I don’t mean to be rude, but you look like shit.”  
  
Suga put his head in his hands as Iwaizumi just stared back in response. Beside him, Oikawa burst into surprised laughter.   
  
“My my, Sugawara,” he said, eyebrow raised. “He certainly has a way with words, doesn’t he?”  
  
“He’s an idiot,” Suga replied, watching with resigned amusement as Daichi barrelled through the rest of what he wanted to say. “He used to give Asahi this treatment too.” Seeing Oikawa’s confused expression, he added: “Our ace. The man Daichi met up with when you followed me before.”  
  
“Well, idiot he might be, but he’s a persistent one at least,” Oikawa said lightly, nodding as Daichi remained unaffected by Iwaizumi’s obvious attempts to end their conversation. “And watching him get Iwa-chan so worked up is the most fun I’ve had all week.”  
  
Suga grinned. “He can usually be relied upon that way.”  
  
“You just don’t quit, do you?” Iwaizumi said at the same time.   
  
Oikawa rested his hands on his hips. “It seems we’re all in agreement then. Now I guess we sit back and wait to see who’s the most stubborn of the…two.” He fell silent as Daichi started talking about Suga.  
  
“…any more. I ran myself into the ground and I’m still picking up the pieces.”  
  
Suga’s smile vanished. One of the hardest parts about being dead thus far had turned out to be listening to repeated accounts of how his death had ruined the lives of all his friends. And if this conversation was headed the same way they tended to, he was sure that Oikawa was going to be faced with more or less exactly that.  
  
“We should move away,” Suga said, watching as Iwaizumi’s face fell and he muttered an apology. He gestured down the path and started walking.  
  
Oikawa turned to stare at him. “Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”  
  
“Iwaizumi’s about to start talking about you, if I’m any judge. And listening to _that_ sort of thing never helps.”  
  
Oikawa’s face froze into a mask of indecision. He glanced between Suga and Iwaizumi, with an expression reminiscent of a rabbit caught in a car’s oncoming headlights. Suga darted back and grabbed him by the arm, towing him down the path as Iwaizumi’s voice took on the telltale tightness of someone trying not to have a public breakdown.  
  
“Wait, you can _touch_ me?” Oikawa cried, staggering along beside him. He turned to stare back at Iwaizumi. They were still close enough to hear the man’s words:  
  
“…wake up one morning to find out they’d been in a coma for almost a week and, oh, by the way, the man I’d been in love with for years had… _died_ and I slept right through the funeral. There’s nothing anyone can do to help with _that_.”  
  
Oikawa sagged, crumpling as though all his strength had left him. He turned and clutched at Suga as though he hadn’t been surprised it was even possible just moments before, burying his face against Suga’s chest and sobbing.  
  
“It’s not faaaaair,” he wailed. “How come _I_ died and he didn’t, Sugawara?”  
  
Suga staggered, thrown off-balance by the unexpected weight, and took a step back to stop them both from crashing to the ground. He blinked down at the other man, not sure what to say. The sudden transformation in Oikawa had thrown him in multiple senses of the word.   
  
“Uhhh…” he managed eventually, watching as Daichi offered to fetch Iwaizumi’s wheelchair for him. At this rate there was no _way_ Oikawa would be in a fit state to be left by the time Daichi and Iwaizumi parted company.  
  
“If I have to be dead, he should at least hurry up and die so he can keep me company,” Oikawa mumbled into Suga’s shirt. He sounded as bitter and petulant as Suga had ever heard him. Even worse than when he and Kageyama had snapped at each other, all those years ago.  
  
“I’m sure you don’t mean that,” Suga said warily, wondering if he ought to push Oikawa off of him. It wasn’t as though his shirt could actually get wet from ghost-tears, but there was the principle of the thing to think about, after all.  
  
He was saved from the dilemma when Oikawa stood up himself, staring at him haughtily as though his eyes weren’t red-rimmed from crying.  
  
“Well it’s obvious how unhappy he is without me, so maybe I should look for a way to….speed this all up somehow.”  
  
“You can’t try to kill your soulmate Oikawa,” Suga said flatly, folding his arms.   
  
“Well I don’t see why no—”  
  
“Because he’s your _soulmate!_ ” Suga cried, flinging his arms in the air. “Good grief, what is wrong with you? You think you’ve got a monopoly on being unhappy? You should be trying to _help_ him, not wallowing in self-pity about it all. One of you has a life to live, and it’s your job to help him live it!”  
  
He sighed, seeing the stunned expression on Oikawa’s face.  
  
“Look, if it helps,” he said, relenting a little, “Think of it like…being his guardian angel or something.”  
  
“A guardian angel he doesn’t know is even there,” Oikawa said bitterly. “I tried _everything_ , Sugawara.”  
  
“Me too,” Suga replied, feeling a tug. Daichi had started to follow Iwaizumi down the path, letting the other man slowly roll himself along. “When I came back from the gates I did all I could to try and make Daichi see me, or hear me, or…or do _anything_ other than hate the universe in general. Nothing worked. I don’t know any other ghosts who have been able to make their soulmates see or hear them, but most manage to at least get them to feel peace.”  
  
They fell in step beside each other, only half-conscious of following the two living men to the edge of the cemetery.   
  
“And?” Oikawa said, watching him carefully. “You managed it in the end, right? You got Daichi to come over, after all.”  
  
Suga laughed bitterly. “Oh, I can do that, sure,” he said. “We _are_ soulmates, and that goes with the bargain according to Hiroto.”  
  
“Who’s he? You keep mentioning this Hiroto. Is he some sort of guide?”  
  
“Neighbour, actually,” Suga said, shrugging. “Daichi lives next to an elderly couple, and the old lady has a soulmate who’s been stuck watching them for the last twenty years or so. We sit and chat, most nights. It passes the time.”  
  
Oikawa blanched. He looked anxiously at Iwaizumi, and Suga could tell what he was about to say even before the words came out:  
  
“I don’t want Iwa-chan to move on like that.”  
  
Suga shrugged. “I can’t say I’m exactly looking forward to the prospect of Daichi meeting someone else either,” he said. “But is it really fair to expect either of them to live the rest of their lifes alone?”  
  
“Well _I_ have to live the rest of his life alone, so I don’t see why not!” Oikawa said flatly, tutting and sticking his nose in the air.   
  
Suga watched him sidelong. He was _behaving_ as though nothing was wrong, certainly. But close to, the slight tremble in his bottom lip exposed the pretence for what it really was.   
  
“We do at least get to see them, though,” Suga said. “And…if you wander around a bit, there are bound to be other ghosts you can talk to.”  
  
“It’s a bunch of young and probably single people around Iwa-chan’s apartment,” Oikawa said glumly, kicking his foot through a tuft of grass. “No ghosts. And our only friends who already died turned out to be each _other’s_ soulmates, so lucky them, they got to move on. There’s _no one_ , Sugawara. The only place Iwa-chan goes is here and the physiotherapist.”  
  
“Well _that_ can’t be doing him any good,” Suga remarked. “This is what I mean about helping him though. Try thinking about somewhere you really want to go. Or somewhere he might really want to go. After a while he’ll start to think about it too, and with any luck it’ll motivate him more.”  
  
He looked up, realising they were almost at the edge of the cemetery, and smiled.   
  
“Let’s try it now,” he said. “A practice run, as it were. Focus on…how much you want company. It should work better, seeing as it’s not far off how you really feel. And Daichi’s bound to ask if Iwaizumi wants to grab a bite to eat. He looks as though he’s wasting away.”

 

* * *

 

Oikawa wasn’t really sure how Sugawara’s plan had actually _worked_ , but he certainly wasn’t going to complain. Especially seeing as, rather than the long and lonely journey home to an empty apartment which he had been expecting, he found himself seated in the back of Sawamura’s car once more, this time pressed up against Sugawara to avoid passing through the collapsible wheelchair which Sawamura had placed on one of the back seats.  
  
“It really is very inconsiderate of him,” he huffed, folding his arms. “Why couldn’t he have just put it in the luggage compartment like Mattsun always does?”  
  
“It would never fit,” Sugawara said, grinning. He appeared to be _enjoying_ this. “Daichi’s had a load of logs in there for months now. Besides, it’s not as though he’s doing it on purpose.”  
  
“…Logs? What does any self-respecting man want a car full of _logs_ for?”  
  
Sugawara sighed, his smile fading. “They were a…my parents hoped it would cheer him up, I think.”  
  
Oikawa raised an eyebrow. “Well I can’t imagine why _that_ didn’t work,” he drawled. “And now here we are. I’m pretty sure there must have been more space in my coffin.”  
  
“As I said last time, it’s not for long,” Sugawara said lightly. “And just a few minutes ago you were complaining about not having any company. It could be worse.”  
  
Sugawara might have had a point there, but Oikawa was damned if he was going to admit it. The feeling of being outdone in anything—even something as abstract as ‘being a ghost’—was not one he was at all fond of. Conceding to Sugawara’s point felt a little close to losing, and the only times he’d seen the other man alive had been across a volleyball court. Still, at least they had something in common. And of all the ex-volleyball rivals he could have been stuck in a small car with, jammed with their thighs pressed together, he could _definitely_ have done worse.  
  
He looked over at the two living men seated in the front of the car. They weren’t really saying much, but at least the silence was…sort of companionable? Probably? _Iwa-chan isn’t much of a talker right now anyway_ , he thought. _At least Sawamura understands enough not to push him._  
  
Of course, Iwaizumi _hadn’t_ been much of a talker, up until they found themselves listening to him retell practically his whole life story to Sawamura over a lunch which had Oikawa’s non-existent stomach rumbling in envy. After just a few minutes he understood why Sugawara had wanted them to sit at a different table, and bitterly regretted perching on the edge of the one where their soulmates sat.  
  
“How do you _stand_ it?” he asked, looking around at the cafe’s other patrons. “They’re all doing their being alive thing, and we have to sit and miss out on all the good bits.”  
  
Sugawara shrugged. “You get used to it,” he said, although he looked as though that statement was somewhat less than true. “Like I said before, one of the tricks is to pretend you have food coming later. It’s not as though you’re _really_ hungry. Just think about something else. I watch people. Daichi, obviously, but others too. I mean, look at that old lady over there. She’s got no soulmate with her, so…why is she sitting alone? Being a ghost is mostly eavesdropping and being nosey, so where’s the harm in imagining stories for the people you see?”  
  
Oikawa turned to look at the woman, who sat at a table by herself, slowly working her way through a bowl of soup, like a quaint character from a picture. “So what do you think of when you look at _her?_ ” he asked.  
  
Sugawara grinned. “Oh, she’s got her husband on life support,” he said. “She’s poisoning him for the life insurance, but has to go slowly because the police will catch on otherwise.”  
  
The woman dipped her spoon into the soup once more, clutching it with what looked like all her strength. She smiled at a little girl who walked past.  
  
“Sugawara,” Oikawa said flatly. “You are a very bad man.” He couldn’t help but smile. “I approve.  
  
Sugawara laughed. “Well, I’ve got to pass the time _somehow_ ,” he said.  
  
Now there was a thought. Oikawa pursed his lips. “You know, if you can convince your husband to ditch the logs, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we tried to get them to do this again, next time they’re both at the cemetery,” he said, glancing over at the two men.  
  
“Are you going to claim this is for Iwaizumi’s benefit then?” Sugawara replied, getting to his feet. He stretched, and folded his arms, looking over at his husband fondly. “Although I will admit, Daichi seems…well, not more _cheerful_ , exactly. But it’s good for both of them to talk to someone else that understands.”  
  
Oikawa nodded, sighing a little. “And I suppose wanting him to have another… _friend_ is better than wanting him to hurry up and join die already, right?”  
  
The old lady had managed one more slow spoonful of soup and was halfway through her next before he dared look back at Sugawara. To his surprise the other man was smiling crookedly at him, looking amused rather than judgemental.  
  
“Well honestly, I’m touched to hear such pure, unadulterated altruism on your part,” he said, leaning back against another table. “Truly. It’s beautiful to watch.”  
  
And for the first time since he’d died, Oikawa thought that maybe, just _maybe_ , being a ghost for the next however long might not be quite all that bad.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urggh! I will admit, by the time I reached the end of this chapter I was running dry. I'm not 100% happy with all the dialogue, but I want to move on, so I will come back and fix it later.


End file.
